SAN FRANCISCO -- Car conventions just aren't what they used to be.
Gone are the scantily clad, hip-swaying sirens pitching to Willy Lohman-esque new and used car dealers. The "booth babes" are younger, and wear getups that leave much to the imagination.
The buzz at this year's National Auto Dealers Convention, winding up Tuesday in San Francisco, points to just how much the automotive sales world has changed. Dealers are beginning to embrace the Internet, which futurists have often forecast will end their careers.
A handful of Internet workshops were tucked in between sessions such as "Prostate Cancer -- Are You At Risk?" Hundreds of men packed into "The Digital Dealer -- Harnessing the Power of Technology," and furiously took notes on how to set up their own dealership Web sites.
"We call the intersection of the traditional dealership business model and Internet the digital DMZ zone," said Matt Parsons, one of the presenters at this workshop.
"This demilitarized zone is like other demilitarized zones; it is a place of very little rules, it's uncomfortable, and there is the feeling that you might die there -- but there is also the sense that there is something better on the other side of the border."
"Right now, there are a large number of dealers amassed at this border, who are scared, and don’t know how to get to the other side," said Parsons.
Of course, intense competition is already entrenched on the other side, in the form of Internet dealerships Autobytel.com and Microsoft CarPoint.
In 1996, a year after it was founded, Autobytel.com received 43,000 purchase requests over the Internet. In 1998, the company hauled in 1.3 million purchase requests.
"Car dealing has not changed in 80 years -- until now," said Autobytel.com CEO Mark Lorimer. He said that 63 percent of prospective car buyers use the Internet to research their purchase.
"These customers are savvier, they have so much data at their fingertips, they know what's out there, they even know how much the dealer paid for the car," Lorimer said.
"The upside for the dealer is that Internet consumers don't want to be sold things, they want to buy things. By the time they set foot in the dealers' door, they are ready to buy."
There's even a spirit of cooperation among dealers about how to deal with the Internet. On 6 February, a group of car dealers announced their intention to develop an open standard, for processing online sales leads.
Even the traditional niche for auto ads -- newspapers -- have jumped in. Cars.com is funded by eight prominent media companies, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Gannett, Knight Ridder, and Times Mirror. The company works with the classified ads department of these companies' local newspaper outlets to put classified car ad information online.
Cars.com also offers objective, editorial content that critiques new car lines, and offers tips to shoppers.
"We are proud of our newspaper tradition and affiliation and want to offer good, independent information to the consumer, in addition to ad listings," said Mike de Villing, director of corporate communications for Cars.com.
Cars.com also does a lot of hand-holding for dealers who are still pretty wary of Web.
"The Internet as a consumer tool is here to stay, and dealers are slowly waking up to that -- along with the rest of the people out there selling things," said de Villing.
